


don't think about enthalpy

by hardscrabble



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Community: inceptiversary, Drinking Games, For which I apologize, Getting Together, M/M, POV Eames (Inception), begrudging hockey fan Arthur, for which I have no excuse, hockey fan Ariadne, hockey trivia, statistical mechanics, suffer me now: unbeta'd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-01 22:38:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20265643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardscrabble/pseuds/hardscrabble
Summary: “Nope,” says Yusuf, out of nowhere. “Cease. We’re not discussing the exam, not the rest of today. Mention the exam, mention anything to do with bloody statistical mechanics or thermodynamics, and you get a vodka shot. So that’s one for you, Arthur.”Arthur starts to protest, then seems to think better of it.





	don't think about enthalpy

**Author's Note:**

> for inceptiversary trope bingo 2019, prompt "Drinking Games."
> 
> This is dedicated to all my comrades on hockeyblr, who have dealt with all KINDS of off-topic Inception shenanigans in the offseason. Hockey is, in fact, contagious, and I am delighted to have contracted an untreatable case. (I apologize in advance to Leafs fans.)

The four of them collect outside the lecture hall. Eames has been here for the last thirty minutes, having given up the statistical physics exam as a lost cause after taking his best stab at the fourth of seven problems, but Yusuf, Arthur, and Ariadne apparently stuck it out to the bitter end. None of them look any easier for it.

“That sucked,” says Arthur. The end of the term hasn’t been kind to him. The circles beneath his eyes are approaching crater proportions, and for possibly the first time since Eames has made his acquaintance when they were both gangly frosh, he’s got visible stubble. Everyone looks sort of like garbage at this time of year, but it’s especially noticeable on Arthur. Part of it, Eames thinks, is that Arthur’s left off his oxfords since the beginning of reading week, swapping crisp button-downs for T-shirts and flannels and hoodies to go with his dark jeans. He looks just as good, of course, but—somehow _less_ approachable, to Eames, because it’s more immediately apparent that Arthur truly is just another physics major dragging himself by the fingernails through the third-year curriculum. It’s easier when he _looks_ as if he’s used to the world falling to neat, logical pieces at his feet, for Eames to snark at him and confound him with irrationality.

He isn’t quite certain what to _do_ with—with an Arthur who looks just as human and _worn out _as Eames feels. Even after they kissed at that party six weeks ago. Possibly because Arthur had been dressed as that bloke from the _Matrix_ and, as such, looked precisely as composed and homicidal as usual. He was only genre-hopping, after all.

He is definitely staring, Eames realizes, as he thinks all of this.

Arthur is _noticing_ his staring, furthermore, and responding with—well, how about that. His right eyebrow arches, and the beginning of a smile twitches at the corner of his mouth. Just enough for the dimple on that side to flash. Eames blinks and raises his eyebrows in response: _well, what are you going to—_

Ari falls against the wall next to Eames. “I feel,” she says, “like the inside of my skull got scraped out. With a spoon.”

“Your flair for imagery is breathtaking, as always,” says Eames, looking away from Arthur to peer down at her, “but _must_ you be so graphic?”

She rolls her head to the side, too slow, and meets his gaze with a flat, glassy stare. “Yes.”

Yusuf appears unmoved, aside from being more rumpled than usual. He’s a first-year master’s student, but he’s in the undergraduate-level thermodynamics class because of something bizarre with credits from the Australian uni he’d attended, and he’d wanted a refresher, as he called it. “That was my last,” he says. “What about you three?”

Arthur sighs. “Done.”

“_Fucking_ done.” Ari sounds satisfied, at least.

“All wrapped,” Eames puts in. It is rather nice to be done with the term, although the fall had been much less burdensome than he’d expected when it turned out both Arthur and Ari were putting themselves through thermodynamics this semester. Yusuf had joined their problem set group through Eames, who shared his recitations. The four of them, camped out in Eames’s dorm or in the graduate chemistry lounge on Yusuf’s credentials, got much further than he would have alone. Granted, Arthur’s rigorously indexed notes and Ari’s uncanny memory for formulas and Yusuf’s methodical system of attack hadn’t helped him much on the exams, but that’s rather the definition of a personal problem.

“Then,” says Yusuf, jolting Eames back to the present, “we’re getting drunk.”

“Damn right,” Ari drawls, and then pushes herself away from the wall. “But I’m broke. So someone else buys the booze and we take it to our place. Bolts-Leafs puck drop at seven.” She glances at Arthur. “Mal and Dom are grading for whatever-the-hell, right, the intro neuro class? So, unless you object…”

Arthur is mid-yawn, but he shakes his head and shrugs anyway. It’s impossibly adorable. How does a man make _yawning_ adorable?

“Excuse me,” says Eames, partially so he won’t start staring again, “was that—_Leafs_? I know we’ve some spelling differences, but I thought _plurals_ were—”

“Hockey,” Ari interrupts. “It’s trademarked.”

Eames had forgotten this aspect of Ariadne, because for the last three months they’ve only spoken about bloody canonical ensembles and free energies named for various dead Europeans.

“They’re your home team, right?” says Yusuf, because he knows an irritating amount about things he has no interest in. “Rooting for them?”

Ari laughs, darkly, entirely without humor. It’s a little spine-tingling, even after knowing her for two years and a bit. “They may be my home team, but I will _never_ root for the Leafs.” She says it with the conviction of a battle cry.

“Then why—” Yusuf is clearly baffled.

“To watch them suffer,” she says, as if it’s obvious.

“Gonna be a slaughter,” Arthur puts in casually, “the way Tampa’s been playing.”

Delighted, Eames demands, “_You_ follow ice hockey? _Really?_”

Arthur half-rolls his eyes in response. “It’s contagious,” he says. It’s impossible to tell whether he’s serious. Eames is utterly enchanted. As he has been, for longer than he can remember.

***

The rest of the logistics—who’s buying the booze (Yusuf), whether they’re going over to Ariadne and Arthur’s shared apartment now, if they’re ordering food or getting takeaway or depending on liquor for caloric intake—takes longer than it should, it seems, because Eames’s brain feels like cheese and he gets the impression the same is true for the others. They finally shake it out, having migrated to the student center on Eames’s guidance and craving for chips: they’ll stop at a liquor store on the way to the apartment, check in with the roommates on _their_ food situation, and evaluate further once they’ve collected intel.

The liquor store is easy enough, although Eames is still working on his chips, so he’s not allowed to participate. The others are done in about five minutes, with a fifth of shitty vodka, another of decent whiskey, and a pack of those party cups that Eames would have sworn were a collective hallucination on the part of the rest of the world until he’d started university in America. “Are we a fraternity now?” he asks.

Ari rolls her eyes at him. “We’re lazy,” she replies. “Which transcends the Greek… thing.”

“And we have, like, three clean coffee mugs,” Arthur says. “Unless Mal decided to procrastinate studying for her thing tomorrow with the dishes, but they had grading most of today. Although they’ll be back sometime later. I think.”

“You just used, like, thirty words to say _we’re lazy_,” points out Ari. “You’re slipping.”

Arthur sighs heavily. “It’s been a long week,” he says, scrubbing at his eyes with one hand. “And that fucking final. On the fifth question, did you—”

“Nope,” says Yusuf, out of nowhere. “Cease. We’re not discussing the exam, not the rest of today. Mention the exam, mention _anything to do_ with bloody statistical mechanics or thermodynamics, and you get a vodka shot. So that’s one for you, Arthur.”

Arthur starts to protest, then seems to think better of it. “That’s weak, dude. But valid. Fine.”

“We’ll figure out another game,” says Ari. “Good start, though.”

“Aren’t we too old for drinking games?” Eames asks, because it seems that _someone_ should. Although—well, Mal had instigated spin-the-bottle at that Halloween party. Which had, as noted, included Arthur making far less fuss than expected about kissing Eames, after such extensive courtship efforts on Eames’s part, and he’d lingered, rather, Eames had thought. Nothing had come of it, but that might have been Eames’s fault—lack of follow-through, or something. Arthur had left the party early, with no more fanfare than a text saying _heading out gotta fight some code. glad you made it_.

Which isn’t anything, really. He couldn’t even tell if the message was supposed to be in-character or something to do with Arthur’s computational modeling class, but Eames—well. He’s an avowed pessimist, a bloody-minded cynic, but somehow, that doesn’t extend to anything concerning Arthur.

It’s awfully aggravating.

Ari answers him, although it takes him a moment to remember the question he’d asked when she does. “The grad student suggested it. So, no.”

Yusuf shrugs modestly.

***

The off-campus flat—apartment, whatever—that Ari and Arthur share with Mal and Dom is pleasingly well-kept—granted, compared to the dorms, anywhere would seem well-kept, Eames supposes. There’s a good TV and two excellent mismatched sofas, and the kitchen is bright and clean but for the sink full of dishes. Arthur starts working on those as Ari texts their flatmates for food opinions. The liquor goes on the coffee table; Eames grabs ice and cola from the fridge and starts pouring whiskey cokes.

“If we do Chinese,” Ari says, as Yusuf takes the first cup from Eames with a nod, “they’ll pick it up on their walk back, as long as they can take the rest of the booze and the cups for their department party.”

They all agree it’s a more than fair trade, and by half six Mal and Dom are passing around cartons of take-out. “Did you stick it to Boltzmann?” Dom asks, carrying over a stack of plates from the kitchen.

“_Shot_,” Yusuf and Ari chorus, and Yusuf adds, “Arthur, you’ve not done yours yet.”

“Besides—I’ll do a shot for this, he’s worth it—we _like_ Boltzmann,” says Ari. “At least, I do. He’s not the problem. Clausius can go fuck himself, though. Is that two?”

Eames is already working on the vodka. “That’s two,” he proclaims, as an executive decision. “Shot per class opinion.”

Ari nods, apparently satisfied. “Worth it,” she repeats.

“We’re doing shots for talking about the class,” Arthur explains to Dom, who looks bewildered. “You are not immune.”

Mal is smiling like the Cheshire cat. “Brilliant strategy,” she says. “I approve entirely.”

“You would,” says Arthur, in that way he has of distributing fond insults like they’re gifts. Mal beams at him.

After the requisite round of shots of bad vodka, Dom and Mal retreat to their room to binge-review video lectures and recitation slides; they have an actual exam tomorrow. Ari turns on the TV. “All right. Are we gonna gamify this further? The drinking part? We could bring in the _real_ game. The beautiful game.”

Yusuf’s eyebrows furrow. “I thought that was football. Regular football, not American.”

Ari opens her mouth to reply, but Arthur gets to it first. “Larionov used it for hockey in 2015. It stuck. For hockey fans. Larionov being one of the first Soviets in the NHL. Which was this whole thing.” He looks up at the ceiling and mutters, “Why do I _know_ this.”

“Because you _like _hockey,” Ari replies.

Eyes falling closed, Arthur sighs. “For some reason.”

Ari smirks, but when she speaks, she sounds genuinely sympathetic. “It’s okay. You can blame me.”

“Believe me, I do.”

“It’d be unfair, including hockey,” Eames says. “Wouldn’t it depend on knowing the rules? Which I _don’t_.”

“It’s not that hard,” grumbles Arthur, without heat. “I’d know.”

Eames sighs, mimicking Arthur. “Yes, darling, but not all of us are gifted with your quickness of mind.” He catches the endearment too late, but—well, too late, he supposes.

Arthur opens his eyes, only to narrow them at Eames. He doesn’t look _angry_, though, merely as if he’d like to get a good look at the contents of Eames’s head. That is, in a manner not necessarily involving scalpels.

Between them on the blue sofa—Yusuf is camped out on the green plaid one—Ari shrugs. “I’m sure we’ll manage. Pass the scallion pancakes; I don’t wanna get up.”

He follows orders and passes. Arthur is watching him again, a slight smile pulling at one side of his mouth. Eames raises his eyebrows in a question, and Arthur’s smile widens before he turns his attention to the TV.

***

He’s known Arthur since they were frosh in the same recitation section for their electricity and magnetism class, and Arthur pulled Ari into their problem set group within two weeks.

He’s been irrevocably gone on Arthur for about the last ten months, Eames thinks. It started in quantum one, anyway.

Well, it _started_ when he was still finding his feet on American soil and Arthur was kindly helping him to navigate things like currency that’s all the same color and slang conversions, even while Eames vented his spleen at the world at large via sniping at Arthur. Arthur is patient and meticulous and creative in odd little ways, dryly funny without cynicism in a way Eames could never manage unless he were high as a kite.

Arthur is _thorough_ and careful and slapdash all at once, indexing his notes in some mad system and turning in problem sets neatly formatted in LaTeX but actually _doing the work_ of the problem sets over nine different sheets of paper, all in different sizes, with whatever writing implement’s to hand. He lets Eames snap at him out of frustration with _physics_ and then he disappears, returning a few minutes later with chocolates or a coffee or a piece of gossip about a classmate.

He has long, elegant hands, nearly always smeared with ink or graphite or both, and when he smiles properly it’s a little like the sun breaking through cloud. At some point last spring, when Eames was pointlessly bitching about variable-depth infinite potential wells and probability functions, Arthur had reached over to Eames’s own notes and sketched the problem, the straight lines of the potential well walls (capped with careful arrows) and a fluid sine wave, explaining as he went. His voice had been low and calm as always, and his pencil work, the smoothness of the curve with its fluctuating amplitude and frequency, had looked like a natural extension of his hand, his wrist, and Eames had _gotten it_ even as he looked up and found Arthur smiling at him. “See?”

“Yes,” he’d answered, as evenly as possible, “now I do,” and he’d gotten perfect marks on that problem set. He still has the sketch, tucked into one of the pockets of his spring jacket.

And Halloween—well, at Halloween Eames learned that Arthur had every line of dialog from _The Matrix_ bloody memorized, and that when he kissed he kept his eyes open, but that when he kissed _Eames_ his eyelids fluttered shut, and that he’d had to steady himself with a hand on Eames’s shoulder when he moved away.

Eames wants to know, rather badly, what he does when he needn’t move away. When he stays.

***

The game ends, three hours and at least one fight-like thing later, in a glorious loss for the Leafs, just as Arthur had predicted. The last bit—period—is scoreless, but that doesn’t stop Ari from hissing in victory and inexplicably, cooing, “_Kitty_—you did _so good_,” when the camera shows the goaltender in mostly-blue getting a surprisingly tender hug from one of his compatriots. Eames looks to Arthur, eyebrows up, as he’s been doing the entire game.

“First game back in four weeks,” says Arthur, still sounding annoyingly sober, but there’s color high on his cheeks and he’s half-smiling again. Surprisingly, it’s probably _not_ because Eames had to have _icing_ explained about four times as distinct from the thing that goes on cakes. He looks too… fond, for that reasoning to hold. Which doesn’t explain _kitty_, but—

“And he _killed_ it,” Ari says proudly, as she picks up the remote and turns the volume down to a murmur. “Set a franchise record. I _love _Vasiy. Oh, right, he’s Kitty because he likes cats and his helmet has a lion on it. _Fuck_ the Leafs.”

“Fuck the Leafs,” Arthur intones, but he’s still looking at Eames.

Yusuf stands. “I might be getting on my way,” he announces. “My dearest will be missing me.”

“It’s nice how you say that like you’re not talking about your cat,” Eames says, tearing his eyes away from Arthur’s. “What, drinking with undergrads is too boring for you? Want to talk about partition functions with—oh, _damn it_,” he says, as Arthur’s face breaks into a proper grin.

Ari laughs like a mad little witch as she pours his shot. Only his second—he’d compared the ice to a particle collision problem, early on—but he’s solidly buzzed from the whiskey, although they’ve all been being good irresponsible students and matching each drink with two cups of water. He throws the vodka back like it’s water, and when he sets the glass back on the coffee table, he catches Arthur looking somewhere below his chin. Which—well.

“I’m simply being a responsible cat-parent,” Yusuf says. “I’ll see myself out; you lot keep on. Do try to rehydrate before you all pass out.”

“You don’t get to act like a grandpa just because you’re doing your master's,” Ari says, but it’s such a token protest at this point she smiles at herself. “Text when you’re home.”

“Text when you’re bloody conscious,” Yusuf shoots back, and shuts the door to the flat behind himself.

Ari rolls her eyes. “So we have two options,” she says. “We could go out and find somewhere open to keep a party going, or—”

“I vote not,” Arthur says mildly. “Eames?”

“I’m rather all right.”

“Good,” says Ari. “Then I’m gonna go watch the Leafs postgame. Make sure they’re all real miserable.” She jumps up, alarmingly steady for someone who’s put away as much as she has, and then looks from Arthur to Eames and back, eyes narrowed in consideration. “I’ll get the shit cleaned up later,” she announces, with a sweeping gesture at the coffee table.

“Later?” Arthur asks, eyebrows going up. “You did two all-nighters this week.”

She waves that off. “Horrendous sleep habits are a third-year extracurricular. Besides, I have to check my fantasy team.” Ari raises her eyebrows back at Arthur. “Not like you’re gonna bug me, though, right?”

Arthur grins at her suddenly and dips his chin. “Of course not,” he says.

She smiles back, and it seems to Eames like they might be having a whole conversation on top of what they’re actually saying, because that is a _speaking_ sort of expression. Before he can puzzle it out, though, Ari gives him a little wave, says, “’Night, losers,” and bops off to her room at the end of the hall.

So, whatever secret flatmate language they were using, that leaves Arthur at one end of the sofa and Eames at the other. There’s still postgame coverage on the telly—no more athletes, but some kind of analysts—but it turns out there are things Eames cares about even less than he does about hockey, and it’s hockey analysis. Perhaps if they punched each other.

He leans his head back on the sofa cushion. “God, I’m glad we’re done.”

“You talking term or game?” says Arthur. “Drinking game. Seemed okay with the sport.”

“Are we done with the drinking game?”

“We could be.”

Eames rolls his head to the side to look at him. “Do you want to be?”

Arthur shrugs. “Not feeling shots. Not feeling like singing the praises of _any_ physics, but let’s not penalize it.”

“It wasn’t even that good of a drinking game,” says Eames.

Arthur snorts softly. “Because you lost twice.”

“No, because there wasn’t any excuse to make you kiss me,” he corrects, because words are apparently just falling out of his mouth now, and blinks at himself.

Arthur’s eyebrow arches a little, but he only shakes his head and demands, “Who the fuck even plays spin-the-bottle in _college_?” He’s doing a fair job of imitating disgust. “As _grad students!_”

“Perhaps Mal’s heart’s desire was to kiss a clown,” Eames says, as solemnly as possible. “You can’t get in the way of hearts’ desires, Arthur.”

“She kisses a clown every fucking day.”

Eames barks with laughter, then slaps a hand over his mouth to muffle it. “Is Dom aware of that particular opinion of yours?”

“Absolutely.” And then Arthur looks at Eames.

_Looks_ at Eames.

“And,” he says, as if continuing any old conversation, “who says I need an excuse?”

Eames feels a twist in his chest. “An inference,” he says, as if it’s nothing. “Available evidence supports the conclusion.”

“You have a biased set of observables, though,” Arthur argues, eyebrows furrowing, the corner of his mouth twitching up. “Like, consider your possible sources of error.”

“Like what,” says Eames, rolling his eyes, but the twist in his chest is sort of morphing into a bubbly lightness. “Improper definition of variables? _Kiss or not_ is rather a binary.”

“There are degrees,” Arthur replies, almost defensively. “I mean—” He’s next to Eames, just like that, three feet of distance down to inches. “Something like this.” And _just like that_, before Eames can even turn his head, Arthur drops a kiss at the corner of his mouth, lips there and gone, and it is positively ridiculous to feel like he’s been kicked in the chest, but Eames _does_; he stares at Arthur, somewhere between bewildered and captivated. “That’s like _barely_ a kiss. It’s not the same—not even the same order of magnitude, although of course that depends on your units or whatever.” His eyes are gleaming. “But if you think it’s a binary, then it means as much as—”

Arthur kisses him straight-on this time, close-mouthed but lingering, drawing it out long enough that Eames collects himself enough to return it, pressing back and—and Arthur’s eyes drop closed, lashes dark. The breath catches in his throat and he angles his head, catches Eames’s lip in his teeth, and spin-the-bottle at Halloween was _nothing_ like—Eames reaches for Arthur, gets his hand on his cheek and opens his mouth and they both taste like liquor but does it _matter_? He could sit here on this sofa and just kiss Arthur for a week and he’d be—

“You really think—” Arthur pulls back; his voice has gone rough. “You really think _that’s_ got the same weight as the first one?”

Eames blinks at him. “No,” he says slowly, “I suppose—”

“Right,” says Arthur, low and triumphant. “I’m right.”

“Was that only to demonstrate my accounting methods are incorrect?” Eames asks, dry and cool, because—well, he has to; because it’s Arthur. “Because I’m afraid that’s still an excuse, although much more roundabout than a drinking game.”

Arthur gives him a look, which is fair, really. “I _should _need an excuse,” he mutters, half to himself. “No fucking clue why I actually like you.” He stands and stretches.

“Do you really?” asks Eames absently, eyes on the strip of skin bared above the waistband of Arthur’s jeans. “You’ve never spared my feelings before; don’t strain yourself now—”

When he looks up again, Arthur’s fighting a smile, and then he’s straddling Eames, that suddenly, or Eames is losing bits of time, which is plausible, he thinks, merely because—well, nothing seems quite real. That is, the warmth curling in his belly and lower seems _quite_ real, but— He has to be sure, he realizes, and his hands are on Arthur’s hips but now he lifts one, reaches for his face, doesn’t quite touch. “Are you—is—you _like_ me?”

Arthur takes it in stride, so to speak; he settles one hand on Eames’s chest, just over his heartbeat. “Yeah,” he says, a casual word, but he _means_ it, for all that he’s still smiling. “I’m not gonna kid about that.”

“In a post-term hookup way,” Eames says, “or—” and Arthur _laughs _at him, soft and only a little bit mean. “What,” he demands. “It’s a perfectly valid question. Establishing your intentions—”

“You sound like a father in a period drama,” mutters Arthur.

“Oh, and you’d know, of course.”

“We binged _Downton Abbey_ before the hockey season started,” says Arthur, as if that’s an arrangement of words that has any business coming out of his mouth. “God, Ari told me I was being _obvious_ about what I—”

“I’d hoped,” Eames says, and intends to say more, but the twist in his chest is going up in a fountain of sparks and he rests his hand at the back of Arthur’s neck—the skin soft, the short hairs at his nape softer—and draws him down. Too quick for elegance; their teeth glance off each other with a jarring _clack _before Arthur huffs another laugh and they shift, Eames’s tongue tracing Arthur’s lip and into his mouth. It’s—Eames will catch fire, he thinks, he’s _on_ fire, and yes, Arthur’s in his lap, another phrase with no possible reason to describe something actually _happening_, and he’s hard but they’re both in jeans and—

He grips Arthur’s waist and pitches himself sideways, twists, and now Eames is on top of him, between his legs, and—Arthur’s eyes snap open, dark and shining. His shirt and flannel are askew, baring his collarbone just below Eames’s mouth, and it’s the work of an instant to close that distance. Arthur shivers—Arthur, unshakeable and patient and impossible, _shivering_, goosebumps coming out on his throat, and that’s because _Eames_—

“Ari will actually kill us,” Arthur says, voice nearly level, just half an octave lower than usual. _Just_. “If—in the living room.”

Which suggests— “I don’t like her chances,” Eames murmurs, and blows cool air over the spot he’d just kissed. Arthur shivers again, his hands scrabbling at Eames’s back before his fingers dig in.

“Mal would help,” says Arthur.

Eames sits up immediately.

As he disentangles his legs, somehow making it graceful, Arthur says, rueful, “Yeah.” He gets to his feet and holds out one hand. “So—look, it’s not just a hookup.”

Standing, lacing their fingers together, Eames replies, “If you could be a little more specific—”

Arthur grabs his waist and reels him in—he’s hiding _muscle_ beneath his layers and his button-downs both, but—but more relevant, they’re standing flush together from sternum to knee, and Arthur shifts his hips, and _oh_, fuck. “Specificity _later_,” he nearly growls, and Eames—

Eames follows him, wordless, to his room, the door clicking shut, and to his bed, lit only by the city beyond the window.

***

“I’d half-thought you weren’t quite human,” Eames says, voice hoarse, running his finger along Arthur’s collarbone.

“Figured you thought you were too good for Americans,” Arthur replies, not sounding much better. “’Til Ari asked if I was ever gonna put you out of your misery.” He’s lying on his back, tucked against Eames’s front and smoothing his hand over Eames’s shoulder blade; the streetlights through the window outline his profile in orangey-gold.

“_Ari_. Really.”

“You might have—” Arthur clears his throat. “Picked up on that. Earlier.”

“Between the hockey blathering and the no-statmech game? How was I supposed to catch anything else of note, darling?”

Arthur pinches him, not terribly hard. “Okay, not just a hookup, but I don’t—do pet names.”

He feels a little like he might be able to fly. “I wouldn’t expect you to, darling,” Eames says. Arthur pinches him again, much harder.

It’s possibly the best thing that’s happened to Eames since reading week.

**Author's Note:**

> I absolutely loved my thermodynamics and statistical mechanics class in undergrad. I also got less than 30% on the final.
> 
> The hockey game described is the 12/13/18 match between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Tampa Bay Lightning (or Bolts), which the Bolts won 4-1. Andrei Vasilevskiy, 2019 Vezina-winning Bolts goaltender, is, in fact, a cat fan, and his goalie mask does have a lion on it. I personally do not have any particular opinion on the Leafs aside from hoping that one guy signs something soon because I'm bored.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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